WTF?

Going forward, it’s likely that you’ll find this story referenced in the dictionary beside the term “a blinding glimpse of the obvious.”

Why in the world a respected financial institution – that, by the way, is moving into new market on the other side of the continent here in the Southeast through its purchase of Wachovia – would do something this questionable in this economic climate and this media climate after accepting millions in taxpayer dollars is beyond all reason and explanation.

I wanted to blog on this, but honestly folks, I can’t think of anything I could say.

Well, maybe one thing.

“It’s the economy, stupid.”

[Later on that same evening . . .”]

Well, apparently someone at Wells Fargo had the sense to read the wires this evening. In a not-so-stunning reversal (only that it took ’em more than two minutes to do it), the company cancelled plans for its annual get-away at the Wynn in Vegas for its top mortgage team.

I agree wholeheartedly with Wells Fargo’s desire to recognize top employees. It’s important to keep one’s best and brightest motivated and happy (though with 100K job cuts announced in the last two weeks, I think most of us consider the promise of another paycheck to be motivation enough).

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking in February 2009 there might be more “appropriate” ways to recognize top performers. And I’m also thinking that, yet again, the company’s public relations professionals were likely called in after the fact to try and clean up this mess rather than having a voice in the decision in the first place.